without success. The orthodox mullahs
made fruitless efforts to obtain the condemnation of Mullah Shah, who
had on his side the members of the imperial family of Delhi and the
Emperor himself, all more or less imbued with mystical ideas.

The biography of Mullah Shah also throws a great deal of light on the
fundamental ideas of oriental mysticism. They spring from a pantheistic
philosophy in many respects, startlingly resembling those of modern
times. Mullah Shah often insists that individual existence counts for
nothing, and that nothing in reality exists outside of God, the Absolute
Being; every particular life dissolves in this universal unity, life and
death are mere changes in the form of existence. The individual is only
in some way a part of the Infinite Being who fills the universe; a
particle which has been momentarily detached therefrom, only to return
thither. To know oneself is therefore the equivalent of knowing God. But
in order to acquire this knowledge the pupil must submit to long and
painful self-discipline; he must pass through all the tests of the
severest asceticism; only after he has thus prepared himself will the
spiritual master open his heart and render him capable of perceiving the
mysteries of the spiritual world.

But this great secret must not be divulged; it is only permissable to
speak of it to the initiate, as Mullah Shah says, in the following
verses:--

We must say that only One exists,
Though such a saying excite astonishment;
The universe is He, though we must not say so openly,
Such doctrines must be kept secret.

This Eastern Pantheism does not lack a certain grandeur, but it has also
a dangerous side, and tends to atheism and materialism. Of this some
instances occur in the life of Mullah Shah. The passage from pantheism
to epicureanism is not a long one. If the human soul only possesses a
transient individuality, and after death is merged like a drop in the
ocean of divinity, why, many will argue, not have done with asceticism
for good, and enjoy the pleasures of existence as long as possible
during the little while our individuality endures? Thus Omar Khayyam
says:--

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the dust descend,
Dust into dust, and under dust to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and--sans end.

It is precisely this dangerous side of oriental philosophy which has
unhappily attained a much greater developme